Okay, we all know that I have fallen behind in my reviews for this paper. I’m sorry. When I left off I was just about to review Star Wars, so here goes…

I was late to the movie theater because my car at the time was an old rusty piece of junk. I still have it, but at least now it has some sweet dice hanging from the mirror.

so when i got to the theater, the only seat was between two fat guys. How come that always happens to us regular folks? I barely had any room to put my extra-large popcorn, foot-long hot dog, and supreme nachos.

But then the movie started and I was swept off of Earth to Tatooine, a distant planet that looks like New Mexico. For those who arent familiar with Star Wars, its a parody of Spaceballs.

Lots of story stuff happens, and I’m not sure who was what and which guy was who. I do know that theres this “Death Star” which Darth Vader is having a hard time trying to get built. Lousy contractors! I tried to make that joke to Darth, but he couldnt hear me.

Later, I saw Barney, and we had a few beers in the parking lot. I was a little tipsy at that point, so I had trouble finding the theater again. When I walked in, the movie had changed a lot. Some guy called “Indiana Jones” was being chased by the biggest rock I ever saw! It was amazing! This concludes my review of Raiders of the Lost Ark

Two days ago I wrote an inflammatory comeback to wordpress about Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles for telling people to vote for political candidates who were “true christians” and kick out candidates who wnet “against” the teachings of the church. An example of a religious leader attempting to control freedom to vote towards a religious agenda by using his influence and guilt tripping anyone who takes him seriously.

Unfortunately a lot of people take the words of an Archbishop seriously. Fortunately smarter heads prevailed (although it really doesn’t take much to be smarter than this guy). Senator and lawmakers (probably sensing the threat to their own seats of power) rebuked him for his statement and denied that there was any such thing as a Catholic block vote, most prominent of these was Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Most of them reminding him of the constitutional provision of separation of church and state as I have stated previously.

Arguelles remained adamant saying that the responsibility of remaining separate was the states alone. Stating the example that the only thing that the constitution provides is that the state cannot impose any test of religion to those seeking office. Which is true, if we were talking about the American Constitution. Section 6 of the Philippine Constitution (and anybody correct me if I’m wrong here) merely says “The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.” That’s it.

And smarter heads seem to still remain within the CBCP as CBCP president and Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma (a man I’m not particularly fond of) effectively disowned Arguelles saying “it’s up to the people to make their own decisions” which is how it’s supposed to be.

The only thing I have with this statement is that he followed it up, in attempt to salvage some of Arguelles’ dignity, by laying the blame on the reporter “The paper misinterpreted the statement of one of our bishops in CBCP… there is a misunderstanding on the part of the reporter.”

Oh yeah, when in doubt blame the media. Nobody misinterpreted anything. We all saw and heard what he said. He was stupid and he said something even more stupid, end of story.

I haven’t written anything in the last three months and I didn’t even notice. My time has been stocked with nothing but reading books and cases; activities of the frat; quality time with my girlfriend; and just trying to keep up with the daily news. I haven’t even thought of exercising and have the growing gut to prove it.

So, this is an attempt to try and get back on the writing wagon and hopefully display some of whatever talent I had squandered by neglecting to hone it for so long, and I can’t think of a better way to get back to what I love doing the most than by systematically bashing a stupid move, statement, or policy by a status quo institution like the government or the church (whichever commits one first) and the big winner is *ding* *ding* no other than the backward moaning of self-righteous prelates out to revert whatever social advances mankind has achieved back to the middle ages.

Was that too harsh? Ok, maybe not the middle ages but definitely colonial Spain. Don’t believe me. Then let’s discuss a recent little thing that has propelled modern society into a system of better governance and acceptance for the general populace of the world but an otherwise nasty thorn for established religion more specifically the Catholic Church, the separation of church and state.

The separation of church and state is a vague concept to many and very few really understand what it means, even those few have a hard time trying to explain it to those who don’t. The idea was first introduced at the birth of the United States of America during the signing of the Declaration of Independence by a faction of founding fathers most notably Thomas Jefferson. Solidified in the provision that stated no religious test be required for the holding of office.

The separation of church and state came about as a practical divergence from the way of government of the Empire of Great Britain because the founding fathers saw how a system wherein a religion integrated into government could easily corrupt. Pretty easy to understand if you consider that the Catholic government system is basically authoritarian in nature.

The writers of the Malolos Constitution realized this as well when they decided to use the same policy when we liberated ourselves from Spain (another country with considerable theocratic influence). So what does this all mean? So many questions. Does it mean the church has absolutely no say in government policy? Will public officials be forced to leave their faith at the door? etc.

No and no. The church, like all parties in a democracy has a say in the government process. Also we cannot expect people to simply discard what they consider as their values when making decisions concerning government. So where does the separation actually take place? Where is the line drawn?

Many people bemoan the constant nagging of the Catholic Church concerning the RH bill and the supposed moral issues it conflicts with. However (and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this), what they’re doing does not violate the separation of church and state. Yes they have made a very strong oppository stance to a proposed bill. They have that right. Yes they have campaigned and protested against it, also their right. They’ve even spread a lot of misconceptions about the bill and a lot of misinformation about the science around it. No matter how amoral, under-handed and dirty as it may sound it is also their right to do so and does not violate the separation. In such cases it is up to each of us to sift through all the information and (based on the science) identify which is true and which is false.

We cannot fault politicians who make decisions based on their values. We can only assume that they are only doing what they think is right.

The church has (rather unknowingly) toed the line between acceptable behavior given their complicated relationship with government and policy making, that is until now. In a rather nasty turn of events the Catholic Bishops Council of the Philippines (CBCP) actually told people who to vote for.

“If there is a candidate who does not follow Church teachings, we should reject this candidate. We must use the Catholic vote and show them what the real Catholic is. There are fake Catholics here, they are the ones ruling in our country,”

This is the most bare-faced, hair-brained piece of filth I have seen in a long time. Archbishop Ramon Arguelles’ brains must consist of complete horse shit still warm from the beasts ass crack! The only reason I can think of for him to say something so inebriated is that idiocy was bred straight into his DNA. He is basically saying that anyone who even dare challenge the church should be kicked out of office and replaced with those who would cow-tow to their every word.

And if any of you were wondering, yes this is a violation of separation of church and state. The man (and the CBCP) are spitting on the seeds of democracy. Our government was founded on the idea that its leaders would be decided by the choice of the individual, not that individuals parish priest. No one and I mean no one has the right to order people who to vote for, especially not the church.

I haven’t written anything down on here in a while for one solitary and heavy reason. I entered Law school.

Yup, I actually did it and until now I still have no idea what I got myself into. I know I’ve always thought ever since last year (or even since I graduated) that I would go to law school as the next logical step in my education and getting the life I want but Oh Boy did I jump into a pool of sharks in this one.

I’m not even sure I’ve digested that I’m actually in. It’s been two weeks since I started and my brains kinda floating between serious studying and my usual slacker style of cruising to the finish line. The latter obviously won’t cut it since it is law school.

The style is worlds apart from college and I guess this is just the aftermath of some kind of mild culture shock. I mean, here I am writing when I’m supposed to be reading about cases on Statutory Construction. Hopefully, with this I can finally relax and get into a groove with this going back to school thing. Which has also served to reinforce my belief that school is a LOT harder than work.

I want to do well in school but I don’t want to get stagnant in writing too. I want to keep writing and have the time to keep writing. Anyway, that’s enough of this. I think I’ll post something about Egypt tomorrow and maybe something about the Euros (even though we all know Germany’s gonna win).

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

More wood for the claim that there are still too many babies born per household in the Philippines. Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University shares his views on why despite the seemingly continuous upswings of the Philippine economy its real life effects are yet to be felt by…well anyone.

“Fertility rates are “too high” and something should be done to bring down the number of babies born per household to an average of two instead of the current three to promote economic growth and achieve “social inclusion,”

“The Philippines of course is a very complicated country, very diverse; it’s an archipelago. It’s very crowded. The population has increased more than four times since 1950. The fertility rates remain quite high in this country, I think too high, actually, because most places that have really made the breakthrough — sustained economic growth, more social inclusion — had their fertility rates coming down voluntarily to the replacement level, two children per household,”

“In the Philippines, [fertility is] still on average about three and it’s much higher in rural areas, of course. This is very hard for this archipelago,”

“The world should aim to stabilize the population within the next 30 years. We’re a very crowded planet. Rapid population growth in this era of environmental troubles creates big problems — lots of poverty, lots of marginalization, lots of environmental stress,”

“Resiliency [is] going to become more and more central because the climate is becoming more dangerous and more unsustainable. So, climate change from the point of view of the Philippines is not a small matter, it’s a very large matter,”

“The phrase sustainable development is the summary of what needs to be done, and I think the world will adopt sustainable development goals … Everybody is coming to understand GNP (gross national product) is not enough, it doesn’t really summarize very well what society needs to do. It doesn’t capture the environmental side, it doesn’t capture the inequalities. Therefore, keeping sustainable development is the challenge. It will not only reorient policies but it will also reorient the way we measure things,”

“On the positive side, it’s good to be in the dynamic part of the world. The North Atlantic right now is in crisis. It grows slowly, unemployment is high; whereas in the Philippines, the Asian developing countries are the fastest-growing region in the world … [A]ll the benefits of rapid technological improvement and lots of market opportunities, a lot of dynamism and shifts of production, [are] within this region. So, a country that really makes a determined effort to be competitive in Asia can have very big results,”